That was what the back of my yard looked like. (I took this picture from a second story deck. There aren’t power lines near the ground.) It is horrible for gardening. There is English ivy coming from a neighbor’s yard that climbs everything. We’ve made progress in getting it off the big oak trees. It is part shade. I tried to plant a garden in the sunniest part and everything got eaten by varmints.

I decided to tackle it this year. I cleared out all the little scrub volunteer trees. I want to make this food producing so I took some inspiration from Paradise Lot and ordered some paw paw trees.

Paw Paws are native fruit trees that make a fruit that supposedly tastes like bananas and mangos. I ordered bare root, grafted trees.

They look dead.

They are about 5 feet tall so hopefully they will survive and give fruit in a few years.

I also got some roses this year. I love them and I found two sunny places in the front yard that should work for them.

The existing plants have really taken off this week even though it has been cold enough to see some snow flakes.

The hostas are insane and need divided.

I wasn’t even sure if the astilbes were still alive last week and now they look like this.

I’ve given up trying to plant other food in the back yard. I’m doing containers this year on the back deck because there is sun and it is safe.

The container on the left has kale and lettuce. The one on the right has strawberries. I left the strawberry one at the base of the stairs to the deck for one night and some nasty rodent pulled out two of the plants. I replanted and they are doing well now.

This is basil, lavender, and some cute decorative plants.